You came to Postojna Cave as a biologist... Did you apply for the olm keeper job?

Yes, it piqued my interest. It sounded like a lot of fun. My friends joked about it, asking me if I’d be taking olms for a walk on a leash. (laughter) And so I came here for my very first job interview! Right from the start, Postojna Cave won me over, because as a biologist, together with Slavko Polak, I had the privilege to see a large part of the cave that most people will never get to see. This is one of the best memories.

But how well did you know the olms before that?

I knew olms reasonably well. Not in detail, though... We studied olms at university, but I hadn’t seen many of them in the wild before. They’re really nice to work with.

As a biologist, what’s the one thing that fascinates you most about olms?

This is what I always tell to tour groups: it’s a fact that olms can live for a hundred years, but what fascinates me most is that they can survive without food for seven years!

That’s one thing that you don’t have in common, right?

(laughter) Maybe it’s being active that we have in common. (laughter)

Being passive, you mean.

Yes, but I'm actually quite active, because I do a lot of caving – including in my spare time. I just love caving. Officially, I’ve been a caver for more than 22 years.

And not just a caver and a biologist. You are also a member of the cave rescue team and a cave guide.

That’s a great thing about the cave, my work involves all sorts of different jobs. I can use my cave rescue knowledge, among other things, usually when we are getting ready for a major event in Postojna Cave’s Concert Hall. That’s when the rope technique comes in very handy, and that’s the kind of work I love. Otherwise, we clean the cave – every winter, we pick up the rubbish, because a lot of things have accumulated over 200 years. We often have to squeeze into narrow crevices to be able to reach rubbish. It’s a lot of work and it’ll take many years before we can really get the cave back to its original state. Over a few days, you can certainly pick up the amount of rubbish that fits into two wheelbarrows. Slowly, we will hopefully end up with as little rubbish as possible.

“Out of sight, out of mind”, as a well-known saying goes. Is this the case when it comes to caves? Is there an awareness that in the parts we cannot see, there are actually the largest reservoirs of clean drinking water, that there is life underground?

I come from a karst area myself, and I think that people who live with karst are well aware of this. But I like my work all the more because we can raise awareness through olm-related stories and insights; we can point out that the biggest enemy, the biggest threat to olms and to drinking water, are actually humans. I don’t think that people in Slovenia are so detached that they do not know how important it is to keep the water clean. Farmers pouring liquid manure on fields, however, are quite a different story. But people who don’t want to hear about it are also unlikely to visit the cave.

You’ve visited many caves. Why makes Postojna Cave so special?

As a caver, I don’t have a favourite cave. It’s about beauty in the details. I like to say that Postojna Cave may not be the biggest and longest cave in the world, but it does have everything in one place. As a caver, I’ve visited a lot of caves where everything is ‘just one cave passage’ and nothing else. But in Postojna Cave you have cave formations from start to finish, the tour is just long enough – an hour and a half, it’s a walk-through cave. I think it’s the most perfect tourist cave. Everything is in one place.

Which part of the 24-kilometre-long tourist cave do you like the most?

Actually, there are several spots that are really beautiful. One of my favourites is definitely the entrance to Pivka Cave, the part where you look upstream. The Vilhar Passage is also very nice. You have to crawl through puddles to get there, but it’s worth it because there are pools with olms and a subterranean tributary, which is also very beautiful.

Have you ever spent the night in the cave?

When we witnessed the first olm hatching in human history back in 2016, I would spend up to 20 hours at a time with the olm hatchlings. Once you start doing things for the baby olms, you have to finish what you’ve started. Because time simply doesn’t exist in the cave, I would often return from the cave at 2 or 3 am.

Were you afraid of anything?

There was this one time when I was walking out of the cave by myself... And I started to imagine that something was going to grab me and pull me into a crevice. And that’s when instinct kicks in and you actually get scared! But just because your imagination runs wild. At that very moment, a dormouse jumped in front of me and I was 100% sure that that was it, that that was the end of me. When you start imagining things from some movie, you induce this fear... And then this dormouse had the ‘perfect timing’! If anyone could have heard me at that moment... I don't know, there were some very high-pitched sounds involved. (laughter) 

Primož, how would you describe the Postojna Cave guide?

To put it simply: (s)he is interested in nature, likes working with people and is patient. You should feel good about interacting with people and not nervous at the first sight of them. And often one of the people in your tour group knows a lot, a lot more than you do. That’s when you use that moment to build on the information and use it another time. And some of the visitors are really such nice, kind-hearted people that it rubs off on you and you realise that there is hope. 

What does it mean to you to be part of the world’s first cave guiding service?

If you get along, then everything works just fine. You have responsibility towards yourself and your colleagues. If this is the way it’s supposed to be, it’s much easier to work. This has been 200 years in the making, and in that time the essence comes out. Even if it’s chaos on the outside, you know that there are points that you have to stick to. You just have to keep avoid getting upset about it. But I gotta tell you ... the cave guide team. It’s difficult to become a member of this ‘club’. For me it was a reason to celebrate when, after three months of working at Postojna Cave, one of the cave guides actually returned the greeting when I met him in a shop. That was a remarkable, noteworthy moment. They were the ‘tough boys’. Not everyone could make it into this club. Now times have changed a bit. It’s a much softer environment now, in the beginning, however, they were the ‘big boys’. You had to earn your place. You started from the bottom. Nothing wrong with that. It was a bit difficult, but in reality they’re all very nice people.

Your descriptions are always very vivid. How would you describe Postojna Cave over its 200-year history?

It’s an ever-present constant: most of the changes you see have been brought about by people. I experienced and observed this especially when we were cleaning the cave… when you find an object, let’s say an oil lamp that might have been there for 150 years... And that’s what makes you think about all the things this cave has seen and experienced, and how we ended up where we are right now. You can imagine the cave watching all this, everything we’ve been doing inside the cave: some things have been better, some things have been worse, but at the moment, I think we’re doing a great job looking after it.

Do you think she was mostly laughing sarcastically or despairing, rejoicing?

If it’s looking at us now: the cave’s two million years old, and we’re making a lot of fuss over a few days, and over a compliment... I believe the cave is thinking: “This is so pointless!”

What’s the one thing Postojna Cave has given you and no one can take away from you?

Memories. A lot of good ones, a lot of difficult ones, but this entire baby olm experience in 2016, all the stress, but at the same time all sorts of interesting things, a lot of new things... the olms hatching – for the first time for the whole world to see – was a very interesting experience.

A birth?

Rebirth. Possibly a birth for the olms, but a rebirth for me.